London Degree Shows Get Going With Impressive Central Saint Martins

This weekend saw the opening of the first of Central St Martin’s degree shows. On display were works by those completing their first degree in Fine Art and Post-Graduate degrees in Fine Art, Photography, Art and Science. The second show including ceramics, architecture, fashion, graphic design, product design, textile design, jewellery and industrial design will take place from 17-22 June.

This year’s graduates are the first to have used the spaces in the new King’s Cross campus from the start. As a result the works were larger and more installation based using the exhibiting areas in the ground floor foyer and beyond well. There was a mix of found objects, installations, painting (both abstract and figurative), photography and digital video. The standard was mostly high, innovative, and full of fun and creativity especially with the choice of materials. I definitely agreed with most of the shortlisted choices for Nova – the Lowe and Partners Award for Fresh Creative Talent such as Sinaida Michalskaja’s photograph encased in a wooden window frame with plastic wrapping. However, more attention needs to be given to the labelling so that it is instantly obvious what course the student was taking and at what level especially in the shared exhibition spaces.

Of particular note were Nural Moser’s installation Deconstructionsite and Lou Macnamara’s #WatchingTheWar (photographer Yasmin Al Tellaway). In fact building sites were almost a trend. Another Nova shortlisted piece was the giant printing press with rolls of very accomplished charcoal drawings by Octave Marsal and Theo de Gueltzl. From the MA in Art and Science, I really liked Andy Flett’s glass jars containing digital print on paper portraits and Holly Owen’s new take on Carl Andre’s bricks with her knitted jackets for bricks in Woodberry Down: under heating in winter London.

Other impressive pieces from the BA Fine Art students were Majella Dowdican installation using tape, thread, foam and wool consisting of coloured and a crazy immersive and interactive room Psychoelectric C302 by Joseph and Victor where playing keyboards produces a corresponding talking head from the video above and bottles bubble away like in a mad scientist’s laboratory.

Top Photo: Joseph and Victor

All in all an impressive start to the degree show season.

Sinaida Michalskaja 2014

Nural Moser 2014

Octave Marsal/Theo de Gueltzl 2014

Lou Macnamara 2014

Holly Owen 2014

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